Dems, Get Your Asses to the Port of L.A.
Put down the pen, get on the road and show the American people you care about the financial pain Trump is needlessly foisting on them.
Enough already.
On CNN this Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke out about Donald Trump’s decision to go after Harvard University under the guise of fighting antisemitism.
Schumer was having none of it. He and four other senators were so outraged that Trump is exploiting antisemitism to pull billions of dollars in funding for medical research that they — wait for it — sent him a sternly worded letter demanding answers.
“We sent him a very strong letter just the other day asking eight very strong questions about why this isn’t just a pretext,” Schumer bragged.
Uh huh. Not just a letter but an eight question letter. And those questions were not just throwaway questions about Trump’s golf game or the patio he plans to build at the White House. They were "very strong questions” about Harvard’s federal funding. Right now, Trump is definitely sitting in the Oval Office with his #2 pencil, laboring over how to respond to these eight strongly worded questions. Either that or he is playing the eighth hole at his golf course. You decide.
As a messenger for the Democratic cause, Schumer has proven disastrous. But that doesn’t mean that Democrats don’t have a strong message. That message is located far from Washington, DC in San Pedro Bay, about twenty-five miles south of downtown Los Angeles.
The Port of Los Angeles handles about one-third of the nation’s overseas imports and exports. It normally takes a ship leaving China between fifteen and thirty days to arrive at the port. Trump’s tariff “Liberation Day” was nearly one month ago and it’s starting to have an impact. Here’s Fortune:
Logistics experts are warning that cargo volumes at U.S. ports are undergoing a precipitous drop. This trend is most apparent in Los Angeles, home to the nation’s busiest port, and one that is first to feel any drop-off from Asian shipping. The drop in container shipping is the latest sign the White House’s trade war is having a real effect on the U.S. economy, and one sizable group of workers is poised to feel the impact first: long-haul truckers.
Those unionized truckers are represented by The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which declined to endorse in last year’s presidential election because of heavy member support for Trump. Shortly after Trump’s tariff “Liberation Day,” the Teamsters fell in line to support the president’s tariff policies. Speaking of the impact Trump’s tariffs will have on truck drivers, Gene Seroka, the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said, “instead of moving international containers, they may slide over and try to move domestic product. They may move U.S. mail, FedEx, UPS product. So you’ll see folks that have to scramble pretty quickly to keep their jobs and keep food on the table. It’s going to be disruptive.”
The International Longshoremen’s Association, which represents dock workers at ports on the East Coast and in the South that are also experiencing the devastating affected of Trump’s tariffs, declined to endorse in last year’s presidential election. After Trump’s victory, its president issued a fawning press release, in which the ILA’s president addressed Trump directly and said, “You have proven yourself to be one of the best friends of working men and women in the United States.” The press release noted that “the union now regards President Donald Trump as one of the greatest friends of Organized Labor and champion of the working men and women of this country.”
How quickly the leopard ate the ILA’s face. Yesterday, the union blasted Trump’s tariffs. “The reality is clear: these tariffs don’t put ‘America First’ — they put American working people last. They will kill jobs, raise costs, and fuel economic instability that will ripple through every community in this country.”
What’s worse is that the true impact of Trump’s disastrous tariff policies have yet to be felt. The true pain will likely start to be felt next week. By the first week of May, there will be a 44% drop in freight vessels from China arriving in Southern California. That means fewer longshoremen unloading fewer containers, fewer truckers hauling goods to fewer storage facilities and fewer products arriving on store shelves.
According to the Chicago Tribune:
By the middle of May, thousands of companies — big and small — will be needing to replenish inventories. Giant retailers such as Walmart Inc. and Target Corp. told Trump in a meeting last week that shoppers are likely to see empty shelves and higher prices. Torsten Slok, Apollo Management’s chief economist, recently warned of looming “COVID-like” shortages and significant layoffs in industries spanning trucking, logistics and retail.
While Trump has shown signs in recent days that he’s willing to be flexible on the import taxes imposed on China and others, it may be too late to stop a supply shock from reverberating across the U.S. economy that could stretch all the way to Christmas.
One of the things that makes Trump’s tariffs so dumb is the timing. April and May is when suppliers begin to place orders for back-to-school and Christmas shopping. Even if Trump were to wake up tomorrow and say that he was wrong about the tariffs — even if China agreed to forget about it — it will be too late for Americans not to feel the pinch come August, when their kids need new clothes and supplies for school. The holidays this year will be painful for families all across the country.
Yet Schumer is busy sending stern letters to the White House. It’s pretty pathetic when corporate America beats Democrats at the political blame game. Amazon is placing the responsibility for price hikes squarely where it belongs. The e-commerce behemoth will now display how much tariffs are adding to an item’s cost next to each product’s total listed price. Some third-party sellers on Amazon are pulling out of Prime Day, one of the biggest shopping days of the year, because tariffs have made it impossible for them to discount their products. (Amazon is not the first company to do this. Chinese fast-fashion giant Temu is now placing a 145% surcharge on the products it imports into the United States, more than doubling the cost in many cases.)
That’s why any Democrat who is interested in pulling up the party’s dismal polling numbers should hightail it to San Pedro Bay. A whopping 69% of Americans believe that the Democratic Party is out of touch with “the concerns of most people” across the country. One way to show that you are in touch with what is happening is to stow the sternly worded letters and create a visual narrative that underscores what is happening and who is at fault.
With apologies to Elvis, what the Democratic Party needs now is a little less conversation, a little more action.
Trump and the rest of the MAGA cult certainly won’t bring attention to the empty ships, which will lead to empty trucks, which will lead to empty shelves. This is a golden opportunity for Democrats. They have wasted far too many of them already.
Put down the pen, get on the road and show the American people who cares about the financial pain Trump is needlessly foisting on them. Now.
Further Reading:
MassLive: ‘Pathetic’: Critics cringe at leading Dem’s ‘very strong letter’ to Trump
Fortune: Huge decline at L.A. port is a hit to truckers—and a stark warning of coming tariff damage
CNBC: Chinese freight ship traffic to busiest U.S. ports, Los Angeles, Long Beach, sees steep drop
International Longshoremen’s Association: ILA PRESIDENT HAROLD DAGGETT CREDITS PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP’S SUPPORT AS KEY TO HELPING HIS MEMBERS SECURE GREATEST CONTRACT
FreightWaves: Longshore union blasts Trump tariffs, warns of massive job losses
Politico: Teamsters members heavily favor Trump over Harris ahead of union endorsement decision
Newsweek: Key Labor Union Backs Donald Trump's Tariffs: 'Something Needed to Be Done'
Politico: America’s largest port is struggling to navigate Trump’s tariffs
Chicago Tribune: Empty ports, empty shelves? Trump tariff battle set to hit home soon
Punchbowl News: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers
Reuters: Exclusive: Some Amazon sellers are pulling out of Prime Day amid Trump tariffs
CNBC: Temu adds ‘import charges’ of about 145% after Trump tariffs, more than doubling price of many items
The Hill: Most say Trump, Democrats are ‘out of touch’: Poll
Where is Nancy Pelosi? Where are the California senators? I'm in California and will be calling their offices daily. I cringed when I read about the "strongly worded" letter. They don't even have the courage to meet with him in person, or at least ask for a meeting. I remember the visual of Pelosi pointing leaning over the table, really getting in trump's face while in the Oval office during the first term. We need more of that energy NOW!
Another spot-on article, Julie. Only one slight correction: tRump doesn't use a #2 pencil; the sharp point is considered too dangerous for him to play with. He uses crayons for letters, Sharpies for Executive Orders.
As for Chuckie, last weekend when he announced his "strong" letter, I saw one comment about the D's having enough of "Schumer and his reading glasses." Well, how about it? I have yet to see the slightest mention of Senate D's discussing replacing him. Probably because despite all his inadequacies as a leader, for some odd reason, he apparently is a good fundraiser. And NOTHING appeals more to a politician of ANY party than money!